“All the historical labours bestowed on the early centuries of Rome
will, in general, be wasted.”—Sir George Cornewall Lewis, _On the
Credibility of Early Roman History_ (1855), vol. II. p. 556.
[Sidenote: I. The narrative as to how the Tarquins are said to have
gained, held, and lost the throne.]
At the time of the birth of Herodotus, which took place about the year
484 B.C., Polycrates, Peisistratus, and Croesus had been dead less than
fifty years: in Corinth and Sicyon it was not more than a century since
the tyranny had been suppressed. The historian had probably met people
who remembered the tyrants of Samos and Athens: he may possibly have
talked with old men from the cities of the Isthmus whose fathers had
told them of personal experiences under Cleisthenes, or Periander.
The case with the Tarquins, the tyrant kings of Rome, is very different.
There is nothing even approximating to contemporary literary evidence
for their history, or even for their existence. In recent times their
whole claim to be regarded as historical has been disputed. It may
therefore seem something like begging the question to proceed at once to
collect evidence for the narrative before clearing the ground by
discussing its authenticity. There are however two reasons for following
that course. The first is that the question of authenticity can be more
easily discussed after the narrative has been called to mind. The other
is that the value of the story for this enquiry does not altogether
depend on the Tarquins’ historicity[1112].
According to the extant narratives[1113] king Tarquinius Priscus was the
son of a Corinthian named Demaratus who had settled in the Etruscan city
of Tarquinii, the modern Corneto, some fifty miles north of Rome.
[Sidenote: Tarquinius Priscus, son of a rich Corinthian trader named
Demaratus, settles at Rome and by means of his wealth secures the
throne.] The fullest of these narratives, that of Dionysius, makes
Demaratus sail to Italy “intending to trade, in a private merchant
vessel, and with a cargo of his own: having disposed of his cargo in the
cities of the Etruscans ... and acquired great gains, ... he continued
to ply the same sea, conveying Greek cargoes to the Etruscans and
bringing Etruscan goods to Greece, and became the possessor of very
great wealth ... and when the tyranny of Cypselus was being
established ... he quitted Corinth and set up a house in Tarquinii,
which was then a great and prosperous city.” All this property was left
by Demaratus to his son Lucumo, the future Lucius Tarquinius, “who,
receiving his father’s great wealth, resolved to engage in politics and
take a part in public life and to be one of the foremost men of his
city[1114].” He is described as migrating to Rome for the specific
reason that there seemed more prospect there of his wealth leading to
high political power, and as finding there the opportunity he was
looking for. “At Rome,” says Livy[1115], “his wealth brought him into
prominence.” So Dionysius[1116]: “He very soon became friends with the
king (Ancus Martius), making him presents and supplying him with funds
for his military requirements ... he also secured many of the patricians
by his benevolences, and won the favour of the common people by his
courteous greetings and the charm of his discourse and by contributions
of money.” Similarly Aurelius Victor[1117]: “by his money and his
industry he secured high position.” So too Diodorus[1118], speaking of
Tarquin’s rise to prominence in Rome: “being very wealthy he helped many
of the poor by giving them money.” Still more specifically our oldest
authority, Polybius[1119], says “Lucius, the son of Demaratus the
Corinthian, set out for Rome trusting in himself and his money.”
These passages are enough to show that according to all our best extant
authorities, and therefore presumably according to some earlier common
source, Tarquinius Priscus owed his throne to his previous wealth. The
writers just quoted apparently pictured Tarquin as a royal favourite who
used his great wealth and ability to pave the way in the palace for his
own succession[1120], or possibly as merely a wealthy demagogue[1121],
but there are indications in the accounts that have come down to us that
Tarquin’s power may have had a somewhat different basis.
[Sidenote: Demaratus and Priscus were great employers.]
When Demaratus was making[1122] his fortune in Etruria, he was probably,
if the story has any historical foundation, a great employer of labour.
Strabo speaks of the “large number of skilled workmen” who accompanied
him from Corinth[1123]. Pliny speaks of the Corinthian as accompanied by
the potters (fictores) Eucheir and Eugrammus[1124]. As Tarquin is made
by both Livy[1125] and Dionysius[1126] to succeed to all his father’s
possessions, the received accounts may be taken as implying that he too
was master of “a large number of skilled workmen.” That this is the
intention of our narrative is borne out by Dionysius’ account of the
migration of Lucumo, as the subsequent Tarquinius was then called, from
Tarquinii to Rome. “He resolved to migrate thither collecting up all his
money ... and taking all who were willing of his friends and relations:
and there were many eager to go with him[1127].” On his arrival at Rome
the king “assigned him and the Etruscans who had come with him to a
tribe and curia (φυλήν τε καὶ φρατρίαν).”
[Sidenote: Their employees were probably free men.]
This whole description implies that Lucumo’s fellow-emigrants were free
men: nothing is said as to their occupations. On the other hand the
narratives of his father’s migration to Tarquinii make no statement as
to whether the “skilled workmen” who accompanied him were free men or
slaves. But the temptation to equate the two bodies is considerable.
Later on, when on the throne, the Tarquins are represented as employing
free skilled labour on a large scale. The object alleged by Livy for the
first Tarquin’s numerous public works was “that the people might be as
much employed at home as they had been in the army[1128].” The Roman
army did not include slaves.
About the Tarquins as large employers of free labour we shall find more
precise and significant statements when the story of Superbus comes to
be discussed. But in the accounts of Priscus there is one further
statement that associates him closely with the trade of Rome. “The same
king,” says Livy[1129], speaking of Priscus, “apportioned sites round
the forum for private individuals to build on, and erected arcades and
shops.” So Dionysius[1130]: “he adorned the forum by surrounding it with
workshops and arcades (ἐργαστηρίοις καὶ παστάσι).” It is surely somewhat
remarkable that King Tarquin should be thus associated with the building
of shops.
[Sidenote: Priscus is succeeded by Servius Tullius, who is said to have
been the first at Rome to strike coins.]
Between the first and the last of the Tarquins our accounts are
unanimous in inserting Servius Tullius. Livy and Dionysius[1131] make
him the son-in-law of Priscus. Servius, who is thus assigned to both the
period and the family of the Tarquins, is stated by several authors to
have been the first to issue coins at Rome. Varro[1132] for instance
informs us that “they say that silver coinage was first struck (flatum)
by Servius Tullius.” So Pliny[1133]: “King Servius was the first to
stamp (signauit) bronze”; and again Cassiodorus[1134]: “King Servius is
said to have been the first to strike a coinage (impressisse monetam) in
bronze.”
[Sidenote: Possible historical basis for this statement.]
These statements cannot be accepted just as they stand. Silver coins
were first struck in Rome in 268 B.C., and the first round copper coins,
the large _aes graue_ with a Janus head on one side and a ship’s prow on
the other, are now unanimously assigned to the middle of the fourth
century[1135]. There is however nothing to preclude the possibility of
important monetary innovations or reforms by a sixth century king of
Rome. Copper has been found in Central Italy in various forms that point
to a copper currency prior to the introduction of the round _aes graue_.
There are the rough pieces known as _aes rude_, the objects of various
simple shapes but entirely devoid of decoration known as _aes formatum_,
and the pieces rectangular in shape and marked with a type known as _aes
signatum_[1136]. Though the extant examples of _aes signatum_ are
plainly on stylistic grounds to be assigned to long after the regal
period, and though the objects discovered along with finds of _aes rude_
do not point to a very early date[1137], it would be rash to say that
either _aes rude_ or _aes signatum_ or for that matter _aes formatum_
was not as early in origin as the sixth century[1138]. Willers[1139]
dates the use of _aes rude_ from 1000 B.C. to the fourth century, and
supposes some developments during the period, one of which, _e.g._ the
kuchenförmig (bun-shaped) variety of _aes formatum_ or the “bars with
various patterns,” may possibly be due to Servius. If Servius is to be
associated with _aes formatum_ the “bun-shaped” pieces have perhaps not
quite so good a claim as those to which Haeberlin[1140] gives the name
tortenförmig (something like the flat round weights with a flange that
are made to fit into one another), since these latter appear from the
full data that Haeberlin has collected to be characteristic of S.
Etruria: they have been found mainly at Caere, Tarquinii, and
Castelnuovo di Porto (between Rome and Falerii), _i.e._ in great part at
places with which Rome had particularly close connexions.
But neither the “kuchenförmig” nor the “tortenförmig” _aes formatum_
suits the literary evidence so well as Willers’ “bars with various
patterns.” These appear to constitute the most primitive form of _aes
signatum_. Pliny’s precise account[1141] of Servius’ innovation is that
he introduced _aes signatum_ in place of the earlier _aes rude_. Pliny
indeed goes on to say that Servius’ money “signatum est nota
pecudum[1142].” Among extant pieces this description is applicable only
to certain fully developed examples of the quadrilateral _aes
signatum_[1143], that, as remarked already, have to be assigned to a
later date: but whereas Pliny’s statement about Servius and _aes
signatum_ is based on Timaeus (Sicily, third century B.C.), it is quite
uncertain whether the remark about “nota pecudum” is to be referred to
the same respectable authority. Pliny’s own words are: “Seruius rex
primus signauit aes. antea rudi usos Romae Timaeus tradit. signatum est
nota pecudum.”
[Illustration: Fig. 32. _Aes signatum._]
Assume a historical basis for the accounts of Servius’ connexion with
the Roman currency[1144], and the motive for his activity in this
direction is not far to seek. Just about the period to which his reign
is dated Greek coins began to penetrate Etruria. They belong mainly to
Phocaea and the Phocaean colonies[1145]. Now “in the days of King
Tarquinius,” so Justin[1146] tells us, “Phocaeans from Asia put in at
the mouth of the Tiber and formed a friendship with the Romans.” The
Phocaean coinage may well have led to some reform or regulation of the
home currency, though the statement of Aurelius Victor[1147] that “he
(_i.e._ Servius) established weights and measures” may perhaps come
nearer to the truth than the more detailed assertions about striking a
coinage that have been already quoted. Even if this was all that Servius
did it is enough to make him stand out as a commercially minded
statesman since he is represented as the first ruler in Rome to regulate
units of exchange[1148].
The chief positive objection to a sixth century date for even the most
primitive form of metallic currency is the fact that down to the time of
the XII tables (450 B.C.) all fines were paid in cows and sheep[1149].
But evidence of this sort may be given too much weight. As pointed out
by Ridgeway[1150], “even in a great commercial Greek city like Syracuse,
the cow formed the basis of assessment in the reign of Dionysius
(405–367 B.C.).” Syracuse had minted masterpieces of silver coinage some
time before Dionysius was born.
Enough has been said to indicate the possible significance of the
accounts of king Servius and his copper coins. Too little is known about
either the king himself or the sixth century currency to build much upon
their reputed connexion. The matter is not one of first importance for
our enquiry. There can be no question of a revolution in the currency,
such as there are reasons for attributing to Gyges, Pheidon,
Peisistratus, and probably others of the early Greek tyrants[1151].
[Sidenote: The census of Servius.]
Reforms or innovations in the currency are quite in keeping with the
other activities ascribed to Servius. The step most commonly associated
with his name is the institution of a census, “ex quo belli pacisque
munia non uiritim, ut antea, sed pro habitu pecuniarum fierent[1152].”
[Sidenote: Servius and the collegia opificum.]
Another institution that has been attributed to Servius is that of the
collegia opificum or unions of workmen[1153]. The early history of these
collegia is obscure: Plutarch attributes the eight earliest of them
(carpenters, potters, tanners, leather-workers, dyers, coppersmiths,
goldsmiths, flute-players) to Numa[1154]. The two versions may both have
a historic basis if we suppose that the collegia as private corporations
go back into the early regal period and that later they passed under
state control[1155]. This view is of course incapable of proof. The
evidence limits us to conjecture[1156]. But one point seems fairly
certain. The collegia must have lost importance when slave labour came
to be much used[1157].
Servius is constantly accused of having secured the support of the poor
by gifts and benevolences[1158], and special mention is made of his
distributions of corn and land to the plebs[1159]. [Sidenote: His
methods of purchasing the support of the lower classes:] In short, king
Servius, if he be regarded as a historical personage, appears to have
inherited the policy as well as the position of his predecessor, and his
violent accession and no less violent end to have been due mainly to
feuds within the palace. [Sidenote: his relations with the Tarquins.]
The same conclusion is the most natural one to draw from his Etruscan
name of Mastarna[1160], quite apart from the etymological value of
Gardthausen’s suggestion[1161] that the name Mastarna is a prefixed form
of Tarquin.
[Sidenote: Tarquinius Superbus secures the throne by buying up the poor.
When king he employs Etruscans and Roman citizens on a large
scale as artizans and quarrymen.]
Servius was eventually overthrown by Tarquinius Superbus, who is said to
have secured the throne “by buying up the poorest of the common
people[1162].” It is in the account of his reign that we find the
fullest statements as to the Tarquins’ relations to labour while they
were kings of Rome. Nothing could be more explicit than Livy’s statement
on that point:
He summoned smiths from every part of Etruria and employed upon it
(_i.e._ on the building of the temple of Jove on the Tarpeian Mount)
not only public funds, but also _workmen from among the
plebeians_[1163].
The statement that Tarquin’s employees were largely plebeians (and not
slaves) is repeated by Livy later in the same book. In this second
passage Brutus, declaiming against the state of things that had existed
under the Tarquins, is made to declare that “men of Rome had been
changed from soldiers into artizans and quarrymen[1164].”
Dionysius is as explicit and more detailed[1165]:
He was not content to offend against the plebeians merely in this
way. He enrolled all the plebeians who were loyal to him and
suitable for military requirements, and the rest he compelled to
find employment on the public works in the city, thinking it a very
great danger for monarchs when the worst and poorest of the citizens
are unemployed: at the same time he was anxious during his reign to
complete the works left half-finished by his grandfather—the
channels to drain away the water ... and ... the hippodrome
amphitheatre.... On these works all the poor were employed,
receiving from him a moderate provision, some quarrying[1166], some
hewing wood, some leading the waggons that conveyed this material,
others bearing the burdens on their own shoulders; others again
digging out the underground cellars and moulding the vaults in them
and erecting the corridors: subordinated to the artizans thus
engaged there were coppersmiths and carpenters and stonemasons, who
were removed from their private shops and kept employed on the
public requirements.
So in the same book[1167]:
Tarquin after this achievement (Gabii) gave the people a rest from
expeditions and wars, and occupied himself with the building of the
temples.... He set all the artizans to work on the undertakings.
And a little later[1168] Brutus is made to tell the Romans that Tarquin
“compels them like bought slaves to toil at quarrying and woodcutting
and carrying burdens[1169].”
It is nowhere explicitly stated that it was to this control of the free
labour of the city that the Tarquins owed their power. On the contrary,
according to Livy the populares helped to turn Superbus out for the very
reason that he had forced them into this banausic life. “They were
indignant that they had been kept by the king so long employed as smiths
and doing the work of slaves[1170].” This by itself would certainly
suggest that the Tarquins had used their kingly power to turn the free
men of Rome into artizans and quarrymen, and not their army of employees
to turn a capitalist into a king. But the smiths summoned from Etruria,
who are associated with the Roman plebeians, recall the “large number of
skilled workmen” mentioned by Strabo as working for Demaratus at
Tarquinii, and suggest that we have here a continuation of the
activities that had made the fortune of the Tarquin family while still
in Etruria[1171].
[Sidenote: He loses the throne when he can no longer pay these
employees.]
There is a further statement in the same chapter of Livy that certainly
harmonizes better with this latter alternative. At the time when the
plebeians suddenly discovered the degrading nature of their occupations,
not apparently without the help of the abler members of the nobility,
Livy informs us that the king had run out of money, “exhausted by the
magnificence of his public works.” Similarly Dionysius makes Brutus urge
on his fellow-conspirators that now is the time to carry out their plot,
when the armed citizens are “no longer controlled by (Tarquin’s)
presents as formerly[1172].” That Tarquin’s regime was one of sweat and
wages but never of blood and iron is borne out by Cicero, who observes
that “we never hear of Tarquin’s putting Roman citizens to death[1173].”
Later writers speak of Superbus as employing penal labour and various
forms of torture and intimidation on a large scale[1174]. But these
statements, which have plainly a common origin, are no less plainly
embroideries upon the aristocratic misrepresentations of the Tarquins’
labour policy. The truth is expressed by Florus: “in senatum caedibus,
in omnes superbia, quae crudelitate grauior est bonis, grassatus[1175].”
In other words Superbus was a harsh and unpopular employer[1176]. This
personal unpopularity must have contributed along with the exhaustion of
the royal treasury to reconcile the common people to the republican
regime, which for them was certainly the beginning of an era of
oppression and misery, since they had lost in the king their natural
protector[1177].
[Sidenote: Suspected attempts at restoring the kingship:]
If the Tarquins’ power was really commercial in origin, and if the
account of it in writers of the age of Livy is in the main outline
historical, then the facts ought to be found influencing the history of
the early republic and in particular the measures taken by the
aristocrats to prevent the restoration of the monarchy. What is in fact
the sort of situation represented as most alarming them from this point
of view?
[Sidenote: Collatinus and his wealth and “benevolences”;]
The first indication of the direction of their fears is to be found in
the account of Collatinus’ banishment, recorded by Livy as having taken
place in the first year of the republic. According to Livy[1178] it was
simply the hated name of Tarquin that led to his banishment. Collatinus
was reluctant to withdraw: he only did so from fear that later, when no
longer consul, the same fate might overtake him with the loss of his
property into the bargain—cum bonorum amissione. Livy does not always
work over his material sufficiently to make it quite harmonize with his
own interpretation of it. It looks as though it was the bona, the wealth
of Collatinus, that led to his expulsion. Though plainly not the
strongest influence in Rome at the time, it may have been sufficiently
strong to be a perpetual menace to the aristocratic government. It is
the “primores ciuitatis” who insist on his withdrawal. If in
Dionysius[1179] on another occasion Collatinus is made to argue “that it
was not the tyrants’ money that had been harming the city, but their
persons,” the protestation only shows that there were others who did not
share this view, but thought rather, with Dionysius’ Marcus Valerius,
that there was a danger lest the people, “beguiled by the tyrant’s
benevolences, ... should help to restore Tarquin to the throne[1180].”
The same view is implied in a speech put by Dionysius[1181] into the
mouth of one of the popular leaders at the time of the first secession.
He reminds his hearers that “the people were never put to any
disadvantage by the kings, and least of all by the last ones”: he
recalls an occasion on which the king had “distributed five minae of
silver to every man,” and reminds the patricians how the plebeians had
rejected the great gifts that the banished Tarquins had offered them as
an inducement to break faith with the patrician government.
It may well have been from similar fears that in the following year the
remainder of the Tarquins’ property was distributed among the people:
“(bona regia) deripienda plebi sunt data[1182].” A few chapters later
Livy states that so long as the banished Tarquin was still alive, the
people received from the senate “multa blandimenta[1183].” The nobles
are described by Dionysius as “taking many measures friendly to the
poor, that they might not go over to the tyrants and be won over by
considerations of personal gain and betray the commonwealth[1184].” The
senate seems to have been fighting the Tarquins with their own weapons.
The blandimenta that kept Superbus off the throne may well have been
synonymous with the benignitas that got Priscus on to it.
After the death of Tarquin at the court of the Greek tyrant at Cumae
there were three prominent Romans who rightly or wrongly were suspected
of aiming at the kingly power. It may be worth while examining in each
of the three cases the circumstances that are said to have given rise to
these suspicions.
[Sidenote: Cassius and his exceptional financial position;]
Spurius Cassius[1185] is not described as having been personally very
rich, and our authors introduce into their accounts of him nothing to
support the charge that he was aiming at overthrowing the existing
government. They leave it possible to conceive of him as a
constitutional reformer who when consul sought to relieve a widespread
distress by distributions of land[1186] and perhaps corn[1187] and by
taking the state finances into his own hands[1188]. The outcry against
him is made to come mainly from the landed classes who fear that his
proposals may touch their own pockets. As far as they are thinking about
the constitution it is the financial position that the consul has
created for himself that is the chief ground of their alarms. “By his
distributions of money the consul was erecting a power perilous to
liberty: ... the way was being paved to monarchy.” Later on we find
Cassius having money dealings with the people. He proposes that the sums
that they have paid the government for corn brought from Sicily in time
of famine should be refunded to them: “but this was looked on by the
plebeians as a cash payment for the throne, and refused.” Though there
is nothing to show that the Cassius of Livy and Dionysius had either the
desire or the real equipment to repeat the career of Tarquinius Priscus,
yet the narrative about him is none the less relevant. It depicts the
early republican as deeply alarmed at any individual who secures any
kind of financial predominance in the state. Very possibly this feeling
may account for the ostentatious exhibition of poverty in which early
republican nobles are so often depicted as indulging[1189].
[Sidenote: Maelius and his exceptional wealth and organized body of
clients.]
In the case of Spurius Maelius there are no such complications. If we
accept Livy and Dionysius, Maelius’ policy did not threaten the property
of any of the nobles. The fears that he would restore the kingship may
have been mistaken, but they were almost certainly genuine. Is there any
resemblance between extant accounts of Maelius’ career and the
speculations that we have been engaged in as to the early history of the
first Tarquin? There is not only a resemblance but a striking one.
Maelius was extremely rich: not dives merely but praedives[1190]. When
he set about relieving Rome from famine, he was able to do so not only
at his own expense but through his own clients and connexions: “buying
up corn at his own expense through the agency of his friends (hospitum)
and clients[1191].”
[Sidenote: Manlius.]
Marcus Manlius, the third to be condemned to death for aiming at the
throne, need not detain us. He is essentially a military character, like
his contemporary Dionysius of Syracuse[1192].
[Sidenote: The republican government changes Tarquin’s artizans into
soldiers and makes war a paying (and ultimately a paid)
profession:]
But the real bulwark of the republic of the fifth century as it appears
in the pages of our authors is not the right arm of Servilius Ahala. It
is a fundamental change that came over the lower classes of the free
population. In a passage of Livy that has already been quoted, Brutus is
made to charge the Tarquins with having converted the men of Rome from
soldiers into artizans and quarrymen (opifices ac lapicidas). Brutus had
just effected a revolution at Rome. To represent a revolution as a
return to antiquity was as natural with the Roman as it is with
us[1193]. It is possible, though improbable, that the Tarquins had
turned the plebeians from soldiers into artizans. The situation clearly
indicated by Brutus is that he and his fellow-nobles are turning them
from artizans into soldiers. It is not merely in the speeches put by
Livy and Dionysius into the mouths of Brutus and his colleagues that we
find the establishment of the republic associated with a reorganization
of the state upon a military basis. The development of the comitia
centuriata as the main organization of the citizens of Rome for
political purposes is associated with the beginnings of the republic:
the centuries were originally and fundamentally a military
organization[1194].
The agrarian measures that appear so early in the narratives of the
historians need not deceive us. As far as they are authentic they must
have been either insincere or idealist[1195]. The republican nobility is
painted from the first as teaching the distressed plebeians to look not
for farms and allotments but for wars and prize money. The picture of
the transfiguration of the plebeians into soldiers is completed in the
narrative of the siege of Veii (406–396 B.C.), when pay for military
service is introduced[1196] and war becomes a leading means of earning a
livelihood[1197].
In short it would appear that the nobles ceased to dread a restoration
of the monarchy otherwise than by armed force when and only when their
government became the principal and most popular employer in the state.
[Sidenote: cp. fifth century Athens.]
The Alcmaeonidae at Athens put an end to the possibility of a revival of
the tyranny (and incidentally to all respect for constructive manual
labour) by instituting state payments for services as jurymen, sailors
on warships, and the like. Conditions at Rome were in some ways very
different from those at Athens. But the Roman nobles appear to have
aimed at securing the same result as the Athenian by very similar means.
How far this parallel holds, at least as between the extant narratives,
may be illustrated from the history of the family that took the leading
place in the early Roman republic.
[Sidenote: The earlier Claudii and their anti-tyrannical policy.]
The part played by Brutus in the narrative is politically as
insignificant as that of Harmodius in the overthrow of the tyranny at
Athens. The political geniuses of the early Roman republic are all to be
found in the great house of the Claudii[1198]. Our accounts make the
family first come to Rome in the sixth year of the republic. The head of
the family at that time is described by Dionysius as “of noble birth and
influential through his wealth[1199].” He arrives, “bringing with him a
great establishment and numerous friends and retainers.” Mommsen[1200]
gives strong reasons for thinking that the family cannot have first come
to Rome at so late a date. But the arrival may well have been a return
from exile like that of the Alcmaeonidae to Athens after the fall of
Hippias. The analogies between the Claudii and the Alcmaeonidae deserve
consideration, the more so as they seem to be uninfluenced by any
ancient recognition of their existence. It looks as though the wealthy
Claudii, like the wealthy Alcmaeonidae, “took the commons into
partnership[1201].” Mommsen has pointed out[1202] how many “well known
traits of the ancient tyrannus” occur in the picture of the decemvir
Appius. His contemporary Pericles was called the new Peisistratus. If
there are such strong reasons for equating the early Claudii, whose
historical existence can scarcely be seriously questioned, with the
contemporary Alcmaeonidae, it becomes increasingly probable that the
history of Rome and Athens in the sixth century ran on parallel lines.
One great difference between fifth century Rome and fifth century Athens
was that Athens had had her own coinage from well back into the sixth
century, whereas Rome, as already mentioned, struck her first pieces
about 338 B.C. No famous name is associated with these earliest pieces.
[Sidenote: Appius Claudius Caecus (censor 312 B.C.):] The most prominent
man in Rome during the first generation after 338 was another Claudius,
the censor Appius Claudius Caecus. His greatest achievement was the
epoch-making Via Appia, the first of the great series of roads that knit
together the Roman Empire. [Sidenote: his public works,] The city owed
to him also its first aqueduct. On these great public works he spent,
without the previous sanction of the senate, the money accumulated in
the treasury[1203]. The sums thus spent must have represented the first
large accumulation of the new Roman currency.
[Illustration: Fig. 33. _Aes graue_ with wheel.]
[Sidenote: his probable connexion with Roman coinage,]
Appius’ connexion with the early coinage of Rome was probably not
confined to spending it. The second series of Roman _aes graue_ was
coined in Campania and bears on the reverse a wheel (fig. 33).
Numismatists have long associated the appearance of this wheel with the
construction of the Appian way that led from Rome to the Campanian
capital[1204].
[Sidenote: his numerous clients,]
One detail only is wanted to complete the picture of a potential tyrant
of the early Greek type, such as has been depicted in every section of
this volume, and that feature appears in Valerius Maximus. According to
that writer[1205], who flourished early in the first century A.D.,
Appius possessed “plurimas clientelas.”
[Sidenote: and Mommsen’s conjecture that he aimed at a tyranny.]
All this gives added significance, in the light of our enquiries, to a
brilliant conjecture of Mommsen[1206] that Appius actually attempted to
make himself tyrant. Mommsen relies mainly on a sentence in
Suetonius[1207] which runs: “Claudius Drusus, after a crowned statue had
been set up to him at Appi Forum, endeavoured by means of his clients
(clientelas) to seize Italy.” The context dates the event between the
decemvirate and the first Punic War. The possible period is further
limited by the fact that Appi Forum was only founded by Appius Claudius
Caecus. The name of the would-be tyrant as given by Suetonius is
Claudius Drusus, but this, Mommsen shows, must be corrupt. The mention
of Appi Forum points definitely to Appius Claudius Caecus, the only
person whose name is associated with the place. In another passage of
his history[1208], Mommsen himself observes how Appius shows the spirit
of the Tarquins.
[Sidenote: “Secessions.”]
If we look at the history of the early republic from the plebeian point
of view, there is at least one important feature in the extant
narratives that supports our main conclusions. The most notable weapon
that the fifth century plebeians are represented as employing against
the nobles is the “secession.” The first is recorded under the year of
Spurius Cassius’ consulship, when the men whom Tarquin is accused of
having made into “artizans and quarrymen” proceeded in a body to the
“mons sacer” outside the city, and refused to come back and resume work
until their grievances had been dealt with. The resemblance of the
secession to the modern strike has already been recognized[1209]. It may
be an accident, but if so it is a remarkable one, that the chief weapon
of the class on which Tarquin’s power appears to have rested should have
been one that reappears in history with the organization of the
industrial classes in modern times.
Before we proceed to discuss the value of the narratives that we have
been quoting, there are a few further notices in them that have a place
in this discussion, though they deal not with Rome but with other cities
of Central Italy.
[Sidenote: The part played at Ardea in 440 B.C. by the working-classes.]
In 440 B.C. the plebeians of Ardea, a city about 20 miles S. of Rome,
are described by Livy[1210] as engaged in a struggle with the optimates,
and as getting the worst of it. Thereupon the losing party “quite unlike
the Roman plebs, ... prepared to besiege the city (_i.e._ Ardea) with a
crowd of workmen (opificum), attracted by the prospect of plunder.” The
Latin leaves it possible that the crowd of workmen (opificum) with which
the plebs of Ardea prepared to besiege their city should be understood
as a separate body, conceivably metics or slaves. At Veii in 400 B.C.
the artifices are said to have been slaves[1211]. But though in Etruria
in 400 B.C. this may have been normally the case, in Latin Ardea forty
years earlier we may well have conditions not unlike those that have
been inferred above for sixth century Rome. Even if the opifices of
Ardea are to be understood as slaves, the united body of plebeians and
opifices acting in opposition to the optimates comes nearer to Brutus’
description of the situation at Rome under the Tarquins than does
anything that can be found in our historians’ pictures of Rome in the
fifth century. Livy is thinking of the Roman plebeians of the early
republican period, not of the opifices and lapicidae of the age of the
Tarquins, when he says that the plebs of Ardea was quite unlike the
Roman plebs[1212].
[Sidenote: The rich Veientine employer who became king of his city in
400 B.C.]
In the year 400 B.C. according to Livy the people of Veii, “taedio
annuae ambitionis, regem creauere[1213].” Nothing is said by Livy about
feelings and parties in Veii itself, except this statement that they
were bored with annual elections. All that Livy mentions is the way in
which the appointment was received elsewhere in Etruria. The event, he
says, gave offence to the peoples of Etruria. Their hatred of kingly
power was not greater than that which they felt against the king
personally. He had previously made himself generally unpopular by his
wealth and arrogance (opibus superbiaque). He had once brought a solemn
celebration of the games to a violent conclusion: indignant at having
been rejected by the votes of the twelve peoples in favour of another
candidate for the priesthood, he had suddenly, in the middle of the
performance, withdrawn the workmen (artifices), a great part of whom
were his own slaves[1214].
The result of the Veientine’s wealth had been, according to Livy, to
make him unpopular. But it is a reasonable inference from Livy’s
narrative that he was unpopular only with the aristocrats who continued
to control the government in the other cities of Etruria. His accession
can hardly have been disagreeable to the Veientines who made him king.
As noticed just above before he became king he had also been the
employer and actually the owner of a great proportion of the “artifices”
of the city. It is nowhere stated that the artifices helped to make him
king in Veii as they had helped to make him unpopular in the rest of
Etruria: but the important part played by the opifices at Ardea a
generation previously suggests that this may well have been the case. If
the events took place as recorded it is hard to believe that there was
not some connexion between the Veientine’s royal power and his previous
riches and control of the skilled labour of the city[1215].
[Sidenote: II. The credibility of the narrative.]
So far we have been assuming that the extant accounts of the Tarquins
have a historical basis. That assumption, as remarked already, is by no
means beyond dispute. Not a statement has been quoted so far in this
chapter that has not within the last century been pronounced to be
historically worthless. Recently however there has been a movement to
treat the narrative with much more respect than it generally received a
generation ago. The new attitude is not merely a reaction against the
excessive scepticism of the nineteenth century. Largely it is based on
fresh evidence, mainly archaeological. Inscriptions show that writing
was no extraordinary accomplishment at Rome in those early days.
Excavations of cities that have been sacked make it most unlikely that
the sack of Rome in 390 B.C. meant the complete destruction of the city
records. In the face of facts like these more weight is now given to
passages where our authorities for the history of sixth and fifth
century Rome allude to more or less contemporary records, whether Roman
or Greek. The evidence for falsification and invention is indeed
considerable, but it is now for the most part realized that the critics
of the nineteenth century greatly overestimated its application. The
credibility of early Roman history is too big a subject to deal with at
all adequately in a work like this. It is necessary however to examine
more in detail those parts of the narrative with which this enquiry is
more particularly concerned.
[Sidenote: The historical existence of the Tarquins has been denied,
_e.g._ by Pais.]
Some scholars are still to be found who dispute _in toto_ the
Tarquins’ historical existence. Of this ultra-sceptical school the
most recent and voluminous exponent is Professor Pais of Naples[1216].
Pais accepts nearly all the views of nearly all the sceptics in so far
as they are purely destructive. But the main inspiration of his
unbelief is not this destructive criticism but the ease with which he
finds that he can explain the growth of our narratives on the
assumption that they are false[1217]. In the case of the Tarquins Pais
first points out in the usual way the inconsistencies and
impossibilities and reduplications[1218] in the narrative, and the
uncertainties that hang over it as a whole. Then, after rejecting it
as history, he accounts for it as myth. He equates Tarquinius
philologically with Tarpeius[1219]. The Tarpeian rock was the slope of
the Roman Capitol over which condemned criminals were hurled to meet
their doom. There are passages in Varro and elsewhere that make it
possible that the whole Capitol was once called the Tarpeian
Mount[1220]. On the strength of them Tarquinius is explained as
Tarpeius, the original guardian deity of the Roman citadel. All the
stories told about Tarquin are, according to Pais, attempts to explain
customs and buildings and natural features connected with the Tarpeian
Mount. Hence his association with the temple on the top of the Capitol
and with the quarries on its sides. Hence the stories of his cruelty
and of his own violent death. Hence too we hear of Tarquinian laws:
they are merely laws passed on the Mons Tarpeius or sanctioned by the
god Tarpeius[1221].
I do not propose to deal in detail with these criticisms. They do not
seem to me to need it. So many unquestionably historical characters
would succumb to Pais’ treatment.
[Sidenote: Pais’ arguments tested by applying them to Alfred the Great.]
Imagine for a moment that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had never
circulated, and that the original had perished in a Danish raid. Imagine
further that Asser’s life of Alfred had met with a similar fate. Both
calamities might easily have happened, and if they had, king Alfred
would be as easily disposed of as king Tarquin himself.
Alfred did none of the things that tradition ascribes to him. He did not
institute trial by jury or the division of England into shires. He was
not the founder either of University College, Oxford, or of the British
navy. The stories of his victories over the Danes are extremely doubtful
on the face of them[1222]. Alfred does not conquer his enemies: he
merely converts them. The legend admits that he had his headquarters in
an impassable swamp, and that the conquered Danes ruled the country.
Twice in two centuries the Danish invaders sweep over England after the
death of a king Aethelred. Both times there is a campaign on the
Berkshire Downs. The decisive battle is fought in the first case at
Ashdown, in the second at Essendune, which is palpably a mere variation
of the same name. In each case the conquest is succeeded by the reign of
a Saxon Edward. The second Edward is admitted by tradition to have been
less concerned with royalty than with religion[1223]. The first will be
shown in a moment to have been the son of a god. Elder as applied to the
first Edward is neither more nor less suspicious than Priscus as applied
to Tarquin. This simple device of duplication probably explains the
story of Alfred in Athelney. It is a reflexion backwards of the story,
possibly historical, of Hereward’s exploits in the similar swampy
fastness of Ely.
The one legend that remains inextricably associated with Alfred is that
of the cakes. Alfred the fugitive in his Arician grove[1224] at Athelney
is made known to his followers only after the burning of the cakes. The
inference is obvious. Alfred is a vegetation deity of the same order as
Demeter, the wandering goddess who was found by the mistress of the
house where she sought refuge burning not cakes but Triptolemus the corn
god himself[1225]. The mistress of the house appears also in the Alfred
myth. But in other ways, and especially in the recognition scene, the
story has been obviously contaminated by Christian influence[1226].
So far therefore from dismissing the cake story from Alfred’s history,
we find that it is the very essence of the legend. In fact, when we
recall such divinities as Dionysus Botrys, Dionysus the Grape, we must
be tempted to wonder whether king Alfred and his cakes are not one and
the same divinity.
[Sidenote: The Greek Demaratus has been regarded as a Greek fiction:]
The introduction of the Greek Demaratus into the Tarquin story has
sometimes been regarded with extreme suspicion. For the late
Professor Pelham it seems to have been a proof that Tarquin was
merely Herodotus translated into Latin. He uses it as such in a
handbook on Roman history[1227]. Even if only the literary records
are considered Pelham’s inference if not unreasonable is certainly
rash. The story of the voyage of Demaratus stands on quite a
different footing from the long speech put by Dionysius into the
mouth of Brutus, in which the founder of the Roman republic is made
to quote the double kingship at Sparta as a precedent for the double
consulship[1228]. [Sidenote: but there is nothing improbable about
the narrative,] Brutus’ speech is palpable fiction. The Demaratus
story on the other hand may indeed have been borrowed from that of
Philip the son of Butacides, who in the last quarter of the sixth
century fled from Croton “with his own trireme and a crew of his own
employees[1229]” and sailed first to Cyrene and then with Dorieus
the Spartan to Sicily, where they tried to establish a settlement
but were killed by the Phoenicians and Egestaeans. But if on other
and independent grounds we find reason for thinking that the story
of Demaratus’ voyage in the seventh century[1230] is in the main
outline historical, then we may reasonably find a confirmation of it
in the well attested facts of Philip’s adventures in the century
following, in the statement[1231] that Caere, the Southern neighbour
of Tarquinii, contained a Greek element at the time of the
Tarquins[1232], and further in the fact that Demaratus is made to
quit Corinth at a time when we have the authority of Herodotus[1233]
for believing that many prominent Corinthians were being driven to
quit their city. The migration of the Tarquins from Tarquinii to
Rome corresponds with the Etrusco-Carthaginian alliance against the
Greeks of which the best remembered fact is the subsequent disaster
that overtook the Phocaeans in Corsica in 536 B.C. When the Tarquins
are banished from Rome they flee to the Greek city of Cumae, while
the Romans who have banished them proceed to make an alliance with
Carthage[1234]. All through the Tarquin narrative we may discern a
strictly historical background that fully explains their comings and
goings. The same may of course be said of countless heroes of modern
historical romances. But in these historical romances the fictitious
characters seldom play the leading political part that is played by
the tyrant kings of the Tarquin dynasty.
The evidence of institutions also tends rather against the sceptics.
Cicero notes that the organization which Tarquinius Priscus was said to
have introduced for maintaining the Roman cavalry was the same in
principle as that which had once prevailed in Corinth[1235]. The
sceptics may indeed argue that the Corinthian character of the Roman
practice was the reason why it was attributed to the son of Demaratus.
But this line of argument rests on pure assumption, and leaves with its
advocate the onus of explaining this similarity between the institutions
of Corinth and Rome.
There is in fact another source of evidence now available which greatly
alters the balance of probabilities. Cicero may after all be right when
he says [Sidenote: which is confirmed] “influxit non tenuis quidam e
Graecia riuulus in hanc urbem, sed abundantissimus amnis illarum
disciplinarum et artium[1236],” and proceeds at once to illustrate his
statement from the career of Demaratus.
[Illustration: Fig. 34. Corinthian vase found at Tarquinii.]
[Illustration: Fig. 35. Corinthian terra cotta tablet depicting the
export of vases.]
[Sidenote: by the finding at Tarquinii of VII-VI century Corinthian
pottery,]
At the time when the story makes Demaratus leave Corinth for Etruria
Corinth was probably the chief industrial state in Greece. Her chief
industry was pottery. Corinthian pottery of this period has been found
in many parts of the Greek world, including the chief cities of
Etruria[1237]. At Corneto (Tarquinii), the town from which Tarquinius
Priscus is said to have migrated to Rome, many specimens from the
necropolis of the ancient city are to be seen in the museum. An example
is shown in fig. 34[1238]. Unless the Corinthian pottery found in such
distant regions as Etruria has distinct local peculiarities, it is
generally assumed to have been imported from Greece. Corinth did
unquestionably export pottery. A Corinthian terra cotta tablet has come
down to us (see fig. 35)[1239] that depicts a ship surmounted by a row
of vases that can only represent the cargo. The wide area of its
distribution and the very numerous sites on which it has been found
point to export from a single centre. On the other hand a large export
trade from one main centre is quite consistent with branch
establishments. If Corinthian potters went to Etruria, it is hard to see
how we are to distinguish the vases they made before leaving home from
those that they produced afterwards. The question whether the
characteristic pale clay of the Corinthian pottery is to be found in
Central Italy does not arise. The raw material would be imported quite
as easily as the finished product. But there is other archaeological
evidence that takes us further, and makes it not only possible but
probable that Greek potters as well as Greek pottery found their way to
Etruria at the period to which the Demaratus story, if historical, must
be assigned, _i.e._ about the middle of the seventh century[1240]. I
refrain purposely at this point from drawing my own conclusions, and
shall confine myself to the views and statements of archaeologists who
have devoted special attention to the material in question.
[Sidenote: and by the many finds in Central Italy of VII and VI century
objects of Greek style but local workmanship.]
In the seventh century graves that have been found in so many cities of
Etruria there occur, besides objects that may well be imported from
Greece, many others that are essentially Greek in character, but show
local peculiarities. For instance at Caere, which was so closely
connected with Tarquinii and Rome, in the famous tomb excavated in 1836
by General Galassi and the arch-priest Regulini, a quantity of metal
work of this description was found. The tomb has been recently reopened
and the contents discussed at length by G. Pinza[1241]. On some of the
vases of a very familiar Greek type found in the same grave Pinza
remarks that “the coarse clay allows us to imagine that they are of
local fabric[1242].”
When we come to Central Italian finds that date from the sixth century
Greek objects that there is good reason for regarding as locally
produced become positively plentiful. They include vases and bronzes,
architectural terra cottas and sepulchral frescoes[1243]. Such a mass of
material points again to a large number of Greek or Greektrained workmen
in Central Italy at the time of its production, and though that time is
rather later than Demaratus and the objects are Ionic, not Corinthian,
yet it increases the plausibility of the Demaratus story, the more so as
the change from Corinthian to Ionic reflects the policy ascribed in our
ancient literary authorities to Servius Tullius[1244].
[Sidenote: The names of Demaratus’ Greek workmen are not (_pace_ Rizzo)
“obviously fictitious.”]
Those who deny the historical existence of Demaratus naturally deny also
that of his Greek workmen Eucheir and Eugrammus. Even Rizzo, who admits
a historical basis for the Demaratus story, declares that these names
are “obviously fictitious[1245].”
The taint of the ultra-sceptical school still lingers. Else why should a
countryman of Tintoretto say that Eucheir and Eugrammus are “obviously
fictitious” names? In spite of its obvious fictitiousness the name
Eucheiros was actually borne by a Greek potter, several of whose vases
have come down to us signed “Eucheiros made me the son of
Ergotimos[1246].” This Eucheiros the son of Ergotimos (itself a good
industrial name) lived not in the seventh century but in the sixth:
also, he was not a Corinthian but an Athenian. But even if we refrain
from emphasizing the pride of family which his signature shows as
compared with that of most potters, who sign with only their own names,
and refrain too from recalling the facts that Greeks so very frequently
bore the names of their grandfathers and that potters like Amasis almost
certainly migrated to Athens about the middle of the sixth century, when
Athens was supplanting the rest of Greece and more particularly Corinth
in the pottery industry, still the sixth century Athenian Eucheiros
completely disposes of the “obvious fictitiousness” of one detail of the
Demaratus story. So far from being obviously fictitious the Corinthian
Eucheir has every appearance of historical reality. So too has his
alleged relationship to the founder of the Tarquin dynasty at Rome. If
the first tyrant of Corinth got his name from a pot and very possibly
owed his tyranny to the Corinthian potteries, it is not surprising if a
Corinthian emigrant to Italy took potters with him and used them to
build up the position which enabled him to make himself tyrant in the
city of his adoption[1247]. In both cases we are dealing with
conjectures, but it may be fairly claimed that the two conjectures lend
one another mutual support.
[Sidenote: Servius and Greece: the narrative connects him not with
Corinth but with Ionia.]
There are no traditions connecting Servius with Corinth: such notices as
we have of his relations with the Greeks connect him with Ionia. Both
Livy[1248] and Dionysius[1249] and also Aurelius Victor[1250] state that
Servius built a temple of Artemis and made it the centre of a Latin
league, in imitation of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which was the
meeting-place of the Ionian league. It has already been suggested that
Servius’ monetary reforms may have a historical basis, and be due to
intercourse with the Phocaeans, who had founded Marseilles in 600 B.C.
The city of Phocaea, though in Aeolian territory, was reckoned
Ionian[1251].
[Sidenote: Ionian influence in Central Italy at the reputed period of
Servius is confirmed by archaeological finds.]
The Ionizing Servius is said to have reigned from 578 to 534 B.C. In the
middle of the sixth century, or in other words at just the same period,
a corresponding change occurs in the archaeological finds, in which
experts are agreed in recognizing Ionian influence if not Ionian
workmanship. Among the objects which display the new style are the vases
known as Caeretan hydriae[1252] and Pontic amphorae[1253] and a group
that has been classified as among the latest products of
Clazomenae[1254], and a group of bronzes from Perugia[1255]. Of the
sixth century examples of the famous frescoes that adorn or disfigure
the chamber tombs of Etruria some have been attributed to Ionian
artists[1256], as have also architectural terra cottas of the same
period found in Latium at Conca (the ancient Satricum)[1257] and
Velletri[1258].
[Sidenote: Rome and Cumae.]
In dealing with the architectural terra cottas from Conca Rizzo
suggests[1259] that the potters who worked there came from Cumae or some
other Greek city in Campania. In this connexion he remarks[1260] that so
far the traces of intercourse between Rome and Campania during the first
two centuries of the city (_i.e._ 750–550 B.C.) seem rather scanty. He
attributes this to gaps in excavation. Once more he seems not to notice
that the negative archaeological evidence harmonizes with the literary
tradition. Cumae must have been powerfully influencing Rome in the very
early days when the Romans borrowed the Cumaean alphabet. But then comes
a period when Cumae is eclipsed by Corinth[1261]. Cumae only begins to
recover her influence Romewards when Corinthian influence is on the
wane. The Tarquins’ story begins at Corinth: it ends at Cumae, where
Superbus, when banished from Rome, is said to have sought refuge[1262]
with Aristodemus who was perhaps the last Greek tyrant of the old
commercial type[1263].
[Sidenote: The earliest Forum shops (from the graves on the site) and
the great drain (from its brickwork) have been dated after
the regal period: but]
It has been argued that nobody could have built shops in the Forum in
the time of the Tarquins because recent excavations have shown that till
a comparatively late date the Forum was used as a cemetery: that, apart
from this, arcades and shops must have been impossible in the Forum
until it had been drained: and that the building of the main drain, the
cloaca maxima, ascribed to Tarquin by Livy, has been shown by excavation
to belong to a very much later age.
[Sidenote: the drain cannot be dated from its brick facing,]
As regards the main drain, archaeology has indeed shown that it was
bricked and vaulted at a late date; but there is no reason for thinking
that it began its existence with the masonry that now encloses it. The
London Fleet and Tyburn suggest the opposite. The most recent volume on
the subject is emphatic on this point. “The earliest Roman sewer
consisted undoubtedly of a natural watercourse, the channel of which was
widened and deepened[1264].” “There is no doubt that the first attempts
at artificial drainage date from the regal period. The first part of the
city to be drained was the Forum valley[1265].”
[Sidenote: and the Forum graves show only (_pace_ Pais) that the
cemetery was secularized not later than late in the regal
period.]
Those who maintain a post-regal date for the building of the Forum base
their arguments on the finds of pottery in the Forum graves. The finds
have been numerous and their evidence is valuable, and it is necessary
briefly to review it. The latest style of pottery found in these graves
is the Proto-Corinthian. This very distinctive and widely distributed
pottery[1266] has been the subject of much controversy as regards its
place of origin, but its chronology is well established. It flourished
in the seventh century: during the sixth it persisted in a few
stereotyped forms, of which at least two[1267] lived on in a degraded
form into the fifth. Vases of this style quoted by Boni[1268] as coming
from two of the latest graves in the Forum are illustrated in the
_Notizie degli Scavi_[1269] (fig. 36). Both the vases illustrated might
well be seventh century. At Rhitsona in Boeotia the types were
completely obsolete by the middle of the sixth century, not one example
occurring among some 2500 vases excavated from graves of the latter half
of the century. This mass of pottery included about 150 Proto-Corinthian
vases, but the number is divided about equally between kothons like
_J.H.S._ XXXI. p. 75, fig. 4, and small skyphoi such as _J.H.S._ XXIX.
p. 319, fig. 7, no. 9, with just two or three pyxides like _J.H.S._
XXIX. p. 312, fig. 2, no. 8.
In the Forum graves there are a certain number of vases of other styles
that cannot be dated so accurately as the Proto-Corinthian but suggest
on stylistic grounds a somewhat later date. None of them however would
naturally be put later than towards the end of the sixth century, and
very few so late as that[1270]. Occasional burials of a later date would
be evidence for a later conversion from cemetery to Forum only if
intramural burials were unknown in Rome. As a matter of fact there is
explicit evidence that they took place[1271].
[Illustration: Fig. 36. Proto-Corinthian vase found in the Roman Forum.]
[Sidenote: Views on the historicity of Servius Tullius.]
After what has been said about the Tarquins and sixth century Rome
generally it is scarcely necessary to discuss in detail the historicity
of Servius Tullius. For representative modern views on him see
Mueller-Deecke[1272] (Servius symbolizes the supremacy of Volsinii, the
Tarquins that of Tarquinii); De Sanctis[1273] (Servius is the Etruscan
invader who drove out the Tarquins); Gardthausen[1274] (Servius is the
Roman counterpart of the Greek tyrant, the Tarquins the legitimate
kings, leaders of the rich and noble). This whole chapter is a
refutation of Gardthausen’s view about the Tarquins: the other
suggestions are compatible with my own. Etruria may well have exercised
as strong an influence on a sixth century tyranny at Rome as did Persia
on those of sixth century Ionia.
Pais[1275] fancifully explains Servius as the priest god, the seruus
rex, of Aricia, who was imported to Rome in 338 B.C., well known to
English readers as
The priest who slew the slayer
And shall himself be slain.
Mastarna is differentiated from Servius[1276] and said to have a
historical prototype in Mezentius, the enemy of Aeneas. My criticisms of
Pais in reference to the Tarquins are equally applicable here.
[Illustration: Fig. 37. Ionic terra cotta antefix found in Rome.]
[Sidenote: Rome and Athens.]
In the early period of the Roman republic the chief Greek influence to
judge from the narratives was that of Athens and the Alcmaeonidae[1277].
Once more we find the written documents and the archaeological evidence
in agreement. During the second half of the sixth century Attic imports
had been gaining a great preponderance in Central Italy[1278].
[Illustration: Fig. 38. Similar antefix found in Samos.]
Thus from the time when the Greek Demaratus is said to have settled in
Tarquinii to that at which the last Roman Tarquin is said to have sought
shelter in the Greek Cumae the series of Greek connexions implied in our
narrative is found reflected in the results of excavations. We have
based our conclusions on a mass of material from various sites scattered
all over Central Italy. [Sidenote: The finds from Rome itself confirm
the narratives by showing first Corinthian influence, then Ionian, and
then Attic.] The evidence from Rome itself could not have been made the
basis of the discussion. It is not sufficiently abundant. Its scantiness
however need cause no misgivings. It is sufficiently accounted for by
the unbroken ages of crowded occupation that differentiate Rome from the
surrounding cities. The finds from Rome, as far as they go, confirm the
other evidence by showing that first Corinth, then Ionia and finally
Athens did actually influence Rome during the period of the last royal
dynasty. Corinthian vases have been found in the city from time to
time[1279], though not, it should be noticed, in the Forum
cemetery[1280]. The influence of Ionia in the sixth century is seen in
such objects as a series of cups[1281] closely resembling the “later
Ionic vases” of the Munich catalogue[1282], or again in a bearded
antefix (fig. 37) found near the church of S. Antonia and compared by
Pinza[1283] with examples published by Boehlau in his _Aus ionischen
Nekropolen_[1284] (fig. 38), or yet again in the archaic terra cotta
head (fig. 39) found in 1876 near the church of the Aracoeli on the
Capitol[1285], which much resembles the stone head (fig. 40) from the
Athenian Acropolis described by Dickens as “an undoubtedly early example
of imported Chiot art[1286].” An amphora in the Attic black figure style
(fig. 41) has been found on the Quirinal[1287]. “The most exquisite
early Attic” is reported by Boni from the Palatine[1288]. Attic Ionic
influence has been seen in the Capitoline she-wolf (fig. 42), which is
held by Petersen to commemorate the expulsion of the kings, and may be
compared with the statue of a lioness put up at Athens to commemorate
Leaina, the mistress of the tyrannicide Aristogeiton[1289].
[Illustration: Fig. 39. Terra cotta head found on the Roman Capitol.]
[Illustration: Fig. 40. Stone head found on the Acropolis at Athens.]
[Illustration: Fig. 41. Vase in Attic black figure style found on the
Quirinal.]
[Illustration: Fig. 42. The Capitoline wolf.]
[Sidenote: Conclusions on the question of credibility.]
This completes the evidence for the credibility of our narrative[1290].
It is not conclusive. The archaeological material on which we have had
so largely to rely, though it reflects the various Greek influences that
are said to have affected their history, does not for instance establish
Demaratus as a historical character. But it does fully establish him as
a historical possibility. It disposes us to give much more weight than
was customary a generation ago to statements and allusions that tend to
confirm the historical basis of our narratives. We no longer pass over
the possibility that Demaratus may have been a living prototype of
Philip the son of Butacides[1291], and not a mere study in fiction based
on the career of the adventurous Crotonian. In the light of the
extremely rich collection of Greek pottery from Caere[1292], the
childish story told by Strabo[1293] of how Caere got its name from the
Greek χαῖρε no longer discounts his other statement in the same passage
that in early times the city had a treasury at Delphi, a statement that
is confirmed by Herodotus[1294], who tells us that the people of Caere
consulted the Delphic oracle about the year 540 B.C. In short there is
every possibility that Tarquin at Rome may have had consciously before
his eyes the career of Cypselus at Corinth. The accounts here offered
both of the Tarquins and of the Corinthian tyrants are admittedly
conjectural: but when two such conjectures based on independent evidence
are found to harmonize so well both with one another and with a broad
general explanation of the narratives they deal with, it may be fairly
claimed that they render one another mutual support.
[Sidenote: If Tarquin is a Greek fiction, it preserves an early Greek
conception of the typical early tyrant as a great
capitalist.]
But let us for the moment adopt the attitude of the sceptics, and assume
the whole story of the Tarquins to be false. In that case the numerous
Greek elements can be explained only as plagiarisms from the
corresponding figures in Greek history, the seventh and sixth century
tyrants. But the Greek element includes the story of Demaratus and his
Corinthian workmen and his wealth, and the part that these played in the
events that led up to his son Tarquinius Priscus becoming king of Rome.
In other words, for the hypothetical authors of this hypothetical
fiction the typical early Greek tyrant was a great capitalist and a
great employer[1295].